Veep in Lebanon for UNIFIL award ceremony

Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia has said that the commitment of the government to transform the economy through the use of technology and human resource development will set the stage for a brighter future for Ghana.

Dr Bawumia who was giving an overview of the government’s performance when he met the Ghanaian community in Lebanon on Tuesday, November 20, 2018, said the government would continue to think outside the box to make Ghana an example to the rest of the African continent.

Ghanaian community

The interaction with the Ghanaian community was part of the Vice-President’s itinerary for his three-day visit to Lebanon.
 
“By any stretch of the argument, if one looks at the progress made in the last 22 months, there is no doubt that Ghana is on the rise again. The Nana Akufo-Addo government has implemented policies and programmes that have had a direct benefit on the life of the ordinary Ghanaian while dealing with the challenges that we inherited as a Government,” he said.

Purpose of visit

Dr Bawumia is in Lebanon to witness the award of United Nations (UN) medals to Ghana’s contingent attached to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), the first time a President or Vice-President of Ghana has visited Ghanaian troops in Lebanon, although Ghana has supported UNIFIL with troops since the inception of the mission 40 years ago.

The Vice-President said the gains made in the macro economy included an increase in the size of the Ghanaian economy from 3.7 per cent in 2016 to 8.5 per cent in 2017; a decline in inflation from 15.4 per cent in 2016 to 11.8 per cent in 2017 and now to a single digit at 9.5 per cent.

According to him, through the implementation of the free senior high school (SHS) programme, thousands of Ghanaian teenagers who otherwise would have stayed at home had access to secondary education.

“In 2017, free SHS provided over 90,000 additional teenagers an opportunity to get senior high school education and improve their opportunities for work in the future while we have been able to accommodate 181,000 more students who otherwise could not have had access to secondary education,” he explained and urged Ghanaians abroad to contribute their quota to the success story.

Credit rating

Dr Bawumia said the macroeconomic improvements led to the upgrading of Ghana’s credit rating for the first time in ten years from B minus to B with a positive outlook by Standard and Poor’s, a global ratings agency.

“Today, dumsor is not killing people’s businesses.

Unemployed graduates are being employed under a special vehicle called NABCo, nursing and teacher trainee allowances have been restored and government is paying the registration fees for BECE candidates.

He said “these are things that did not exist before we came into government and, if we had not addressed them they were going to compound the hardships on Ghanaians.”